When a state’s intervention costs 1,000 times more than expected and has not proven to have saved a single life, the government backtracks.

That’s exactly what has happened after two decades in Canada with the now-infamous national gun registry.

I don’t know what got lost in translation, but believe it or not Quebec’s Public Safety Minister, Stephane Bergeron, tabled Bill 20 last Tuesday to create a brand new provincial gun registry to replace the federal one.

When asked how much this new registry will cost, Bergeron said “a few million dollars,” reminiscent of former federal justice minister Allan Rock’s declaration 20 years ago that the national registry would cost a mere $2 million before it ended up costing over $2 billion.

Quebec has been challenging Ottawa’s decision to rip its registry for months.

The provincial government even went before the Superior Court to recuperate the already existent registry data.

It won its case. Ottawa appealed and the judicial war could go on for another two to five years.

To justify why Quebec is going in the opposite direction from the rest of the country, Bergeron predictably argued that “Quebec is different.”

Quebec’s gun registry a shot in the dark

When a state’s intervention costs 1,000 times more than expected and has not proven to have saved a single life, the government backtracks.

That’s exactly what has happened after two decades in Canada with the now-infamous national gun registry.

I don’t know what got lost in translation, but believe it or not Quebec’s Public Safety Minister, Stephane Bergeron, tabled Bill 20 last Tuesday to create a brand new provincial gun registry to replace the federal one.

When asked how much this new registry will cost, Bergeron said “a few million dollars,” reminiscent of former federal justice minister Allan Rock’s declaration 20 years ago that the national registry would cost a mere $2 million before it ended up costing over $2 billion.

Quebec has been challenging Ottawa’s decision to rip its registry for months.

The provincial government even went before the Superior Court to recuperate the already existent registry data.